2 Sam 4 - The Round Church at St Andrew the Great, Cambridge

10p
The Round Church at
St Andrew the Great
Cambridge
A Sermon Preached
on Sunday 10 th February 2008
by Mark Ashton
2 Samuel 4 Doing God’s Work our Way
What is it reasonable to do to try to persuade
someone else to become a Christian? When we
encounter the zeal of the Jehovah’s Witnesses or the
Mormons, should we feel rebuked by their
dedication? Is that how Christians should behave?
Does it not make my devotion to Jesus Christ look
lukewarm and pathetic in comparison, as they go
from door to door, hour after hour and day after day,
urging people to join them? How do we decide how
far we should go? If you’re not a Christian, do
Christians appear lukewarm as compared to some of
the cults?
Twenty-five years ago I was responsible for
providing some training for the overall leaders of
Pathfinder and CYFA Ventures (which are Christian
youth camps for 11-18s). So I invited a couple of
friends to lay on a seminar about the methodology of
the cults . . . and encouraged the Venture leaders to
compare how they ran their camps with the methods
of the cultists. We all found the comparison
uncomfortable: the isolation from home and family,
the high-level of excitement, the atmosphere of love
and acceptance, the peer-group pressure, the very full
programme of activities and talks, a high
carbohydrate diet, shortage of sleep, very little time
alone to reflect. There were alarming parallels. To
think how close we were to the brainwashing
methods of the cults! Did the end justify the means?
Is it justified to work in that way on Pathfinder and
CYFA Ventures? If we trust in a truly Sovereign
God, can we ever cut corners in His service? Is that
not to deny His sovereignty?
2 Samuel 4, raises for us that issue: What can be
done in the name of God? First:
1) It is an undignifying tale of 2 Opportunists.
But let’s pick up where we left off; the story so far:
Saul and Jonathan had been killed by the Philistines
on Mt Gilboa, and seven-and-a-half years of
simmering civil war had followed, a story of
betrayal, opportunism, political pragmatism, and an
ever-mounting death toll—now over 400. An
unhappy story, and the parallel account of the period
in 1 Chronicles 11 omits these years entirely. It had
been just what David did not want to happen. Now, it
is about to come to an end, but not before more
bloodshed.
When Ish-Bosheth son of Saul heard that Abner
had died in Hebron, he lost courage, and all Israel
became alarmed (v 1). Like the assassination by the
Serbian Black Hand of the Austrian Archduke Franz
Ferdinand in Sarajevo on June 28 th 1914, the murder
of General Abner could precipitate a major escalation
in violence. Ishbosheth was Saul’s last surviving
son—a ‘thoroughly un-kingly invertebrate’ as one
commentator called him.
And then in verse four we are told of Saul’s
grandson: (Jonathan son of Saul had a son who was
lame in both feet. He was five years old when the
news about Saul and Jonathan came from Jezreel.
His nurse picked him up and fled, but as she
hurried to leave, he fell and became crippled. His
name was Mephibosheth.) (v 4).
So, we are going to be introduced to the two main
protagonists of the chapter in verses 2-3, bracketed
by a description of Saul’s son, Ishbosheth, who
lacked the courage to continue resistance to David,
and Saul’s grandson Mephibosheth, who lacked the
ability (as a crippled twelve-year-old). It’s a picture
of weakness and political destitution.

Now Saul’s son had two men who were leaders of
raiding bands. One was named Baanah and the
other Recab; they were sons of Rimmon the
Beerothite from the tribe of Benjamin—Beeroth is
considered part of Benjamin, because the people of
Beeroth fled to Gittaim and have lived there as
aliens to this day (vv 2-3). These men were
Ishbosheth’s own military commanders and members
of Saul’s own tribe, Benjamin. And, at this moment
of crisis and political vacuum, they can see what
needs doing: Now Recab and Baanah, the sons of
Rimmon the Beerothite, set out for the house of
Ish-Bosheth, and they arrived there in the heat of
the day while he was taking his noonday rest. They
went into the inner part of the house as if to get
some wheat, and they stabbed him in the stomach.
Then Recab and his brother Baanah slipped away.
They had gone into the house while he was lying on
the bed in his bedroom. After they stabbed and
killed him, they cut off his head. Taking it with
them, they travelled all night by way of the Arabah
(vv 5-7).
The repetition emphasises the treachery, cowardice
and violence of their action—they came: he slept:
they stabbed. Perhaps there’s even a hint that the
decapitation was an afterthought, as they realised
David might not take their word for the murder
without incontrovertible proof. So they nip back and
secure that proof, and hurry off to David in Hebron,
an eighty-mile journey, probably about thirty hours
of non-stop travel.
Now, it is all there at last for David! Recab and
Baanah have done what needed doing. It was not
pleasant. But it was necessary. Now, there need be
no more bloodshed. One head had to roll, so the
kingdom might happen. They were the men of
destiny doing for David what had to be done, and
they had their speech ready. (And no doubt their
hopes of reward were high). But it was not to work
out quite how they had anticipated.
2) Using God, or being used by God.
They brought the head of Ish-Bosheth to David at
Hebron and said to the king, “Here is the head of
Ish-Bosheth son of Saul, your enemy, who tried to
take your life. This day the LORD has avenged my
lord the king against Saul and his offspring.” (v 8).
The first half of their remark was indisputable: “Here
is the head of Ishbosheth son of Saul, your enemy,
who tried to take your life.” Saul had certainly tried
to take David’s life on several occasions, and now
Saul’s last son Ishbosheth was dead.
2
But it was the second half of their remark that jarred:
“This day the LORD has avenged my lord the king
against Saul and his offspring.” But, as David looked
at the bloody, flyblown head of Ishbosheth held up
before him by the hair, he did not recognise God’s
part in it. Recab and Baanah had blood on their hands
and theology on their lips, but their theology did not
match with David’s own experience of God. David
answered Recab and his brother Baanah, the sons
of Rimmon the Beerothite, “As surely as the LORD
lives, who has delivered me out of all trouble . . . ”
(v 9). The God, who had delivered David out of all
trouble, had moved David not to take Saul’s life by
violence. (David had even sworn to Saul that he
would not do so (1 Samuel 24:21-22)). David knew
God too well.
He knew that men’s lives are in the hand of God, and
that they are not to be wrenched from there by the
hands of violent men. He is a sovereign God, the
God of ends and of means. So we cannot pop speech
bubbles into His mouth; nor lightly attach His name
to what we want to do; nor baptise a bit of human
real-politik with a bit of grand sounding theology.
David had walked with God for too long. He had
learnt to trust Him. He had come to understand the
nature of the relationship between himself and God.
“As surely as the Lord lives, who has delivered me
out of all trouble” (v 9). David knew what it was to
depend on God. He knew how God acted. Just as the
married here know how their wives/husbands take
their tea, so David knew his God. Do we know God
like that? Instinctively aware of how God reacts—of
what pleases Him and what displeases Him, of how
He does His work in His world? Is He real to us like
that?
Or are we more like Recab and Baanah—eager to
enlist God’s help with our own plans for the world?
They could see what needed doing—this whole
messy business needed to be brought to a quick,
clean end with the death of Ishbosheth. And they
were happy to do it in the name of God. It was
obvious. It was logical. It made sense. It must be
God’s will. But it wasn’t. Not remotely. They were
using God: but they were not being used by God.
And that is a huge difference
In our evangelism (when we try to share Jesus with
other people), do we use God, or are we used by
Him? Are we asking Him to help us convert the
people we’ve decided to convert? Or are we asking
Him to use us to reach the people He has decided to
call to Himself? In our parenting, are we using God
to help us achieve our own ends in terms of the
desirable outcomes in our children’s lives that we
have chosen for them? Exams / University / career /

marriage etc. or are we asking God to use us for His
goals for them? In our marriages, do we use God to
help us achieve our aims for the relationship (which
is usually a pleasant life for me), or do we expect
Him to use our marriages to change us and make us
holy? In our lives, are we expecting God’s help to
achieve our career goals? Or is my career under His
control?
God cannot be used by us: We must be used by Him.
Recab and Baanah had not realised that. They
presented themselves as God’s agents delivering the
crown to David. David recognised them as the
cowardly, violent, opportunistic thugs they really
were . . . who now found themselves face-to-face
with a different sort of king.
3) The king who cannot be stopped (vv 10-12)
David answered Recab and his brother Baanah, the
sons of Rimmon the Beerothite, “As surely as the
LORD lives, who has delivered me out of all
trouble, when a man told me, ‘Saul is dead,’ and
thought he was bringing good news, I seized him
and put him to death in Ziklag. That was the reward
I gave him for his news” (vv 9-10)! Was that
reasonable behaviour by David? Was that Amalekite
being dealt with justly? Remember the Bible does
not pronounce on that. It records the event without
passing a moral verdict on it (and in our Bible
reading we must be careful that we are not always
trying to pass moral verdicts where the Bible does
not do so). But David acted like that because David
was committed to God working according to His
word, and David was opposed to all human attempts
to take the initiative away from God. God’s kingdom
could only come in God’s way. No man should
interfere in that process.
So: “How much more—when wicked men have
killed an innocent man in his own house and on his
own bed—should I not now demand his blood from
your hand and rid the earth of you!” So David gave
an order to his men, and they killed them. They cut
off their hands and feet and hung the bodies by the
pool in Hebron. But they took the head of Ish-
Bosheth and buried it in Abner’s tomb at Hebron
(vv 11-12). Was this justice? Well, yes, at one level,
God’s king executes judgement on Recab and
Baanah for the cold-blooded murder of an innocent
man, which they must have reported to David
themselves. And, in death, they are treated with
dishonour. And Ishbosheth is treated with honour.
3
But David’s behaviour at the end of this chapter is
more than a simple act of justice, bringing closure to
an un-edifying little tragedy. It is another act of
commitment by David to the will of God. God had
said that David would inherit the kingdom. As a
teenager, David had been anointed by Samuel. It had
taken many years and it had often been in severe
doubt. It still had not happened. But David had learnt
that it could only happen in one way—God’s way.
The rise of David is not portrayed as a bit of good
fortune, nor as clever politics, nor as a reward for
righteous behaviour, but as God’s Word doing what
God’s Word always does in the world—which is to
come true . . . to the great blessing of those who trust
it. That is how God’s king comes, whether David, or
the One to Whom he pointed: Jesus.
So king David could not be stopped, because God
had spoken. David knew he did not need Recab and
Baanah to protect him, nor to provide him with the
crown. He had God’s word. So it would come in
God’s time and in God’s way. Humans must be very
careful of not getting in that way. If a super-liner is
docking in Southampton, I could go out in a rowboat
to see if I could help. But I’d only get in the way and
put my life at risk. So Recab and Baanah discovered.
As New Testament believers in King Jesus, we have
a much fuller picture of how God works in the cross.
We know gospel work must always be done in a
gospel way. And we must beware of getting in the
way. So, yes, we shun the methods of the cults in
conversion. The end can never justify the means. We
have seen the cross—we know now how God works
in this world—by weakness and by grace. We lose
arguments. We are mocked and scorned. But God
conquers. We refuse to sink to the level of militant
Islam in how we treat other religions. We die daily,
knowing this is God’s world and it will be ruled by
God’s King in His way. No one can stop that. We
need to be sure we are helping it, not hindering it.
(All scripture quoted is from the New International
Version of the Bible unless otherwise stated.)